Math 11, Academic Integrity Policy

"The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible." -- Dwight Eisenhower

It is essential that all Math 11 students adhere to the UCSD Policy on Integrity of Scholarship. More information about academic integrity at UCSD is available here. While it is understandable that students will sometimes feel substantial pressure to perform well
in classes, it is never acceptable to attempt to achieve high grades by any means other than honest effort. Cases of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Academic Integrity Office. Penalties for violating the policy vary depending on the circumstances but can include failure in the course or suspension from the university. Students are expected to obey the following rules:

Exams: On exams, you will be allowed to use a calculator, but will not be permitted to use any books or notes unless specifically authorized by your instructor. All devices that can be used for communication or internet access must be put away and out of view during the exam. You may not share calculators with other students during the exam. Also, you must stop working on the exam immediately when time is called.

Paper and Pencil Homework: You may consult other students, the instructor, or TAs while formulating your ideas on homework problems. However, you must write your final homework solutions by yourself, based on your own understanding. You may not copy or paraphrase solutions from another student or from any other source. If you consult any sources other than your textbook or discuss the problems with anyone other than the instructor or TA, you must acknowledge this on your homework.

Online Homework: If your instructor assigns online homework, you may not discuss the problems with other students after you have submitted your answers and received feedback. Likewise, before you submit your answers, you may not discuss the problems with other students who have already submitted their answers and received feedback.

Computer Labs: The rules that apply to paper and pencil homework also apply to computer labs. Also, because one of the goals of the labs is to give students experience in working with statistical software, your lab write-ups must be based on calculations that you carried out in Minitab yourself. You may never send your Minitab graphs, or the text of your lab solutions, to another student.

Other Resources: You may look up general course topics on the internet, but you may not look for solutions to homework problems on the internet. In particular, you may not make use
of web sites that help students with homework problems or provide online tutoring (except for online tutoring provided by the Teaching and Learning Commons). You may not look at the Instructor's Edition of the textbook, or any other source containing answers to even-numbered problems in the textbook. You may not look at materials (such as homework or computer lab solutions) from previous Math 11 classes. Likewise, you may never show your homework or computer lab solutions to future Math 11 students.

Posting of Course Materials: You may not post your homework or lab solutions online where they could be found by future Math 11 students. If your instructor posts homework solutions, you may not show those solutions to future Math 11 students, or post them online.

Plagiarism Detection: To ensure that students will not copy portions of their labs from other current or past Math 11 students, the software Turnitin.com will be used to detect plagiarism. Therefore, the following policy, quoted from UCSD's Academic Integrity web site, applies to Math 11:
"Students agree that by taking this course all required papers will be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the terms of use agreement posted on the Turnitin.com site."

Examples

Students sometimes have misconceptions about what is acceptable, especially with regard to obtaining help on homework problems. The scenarios below are intended to clarify some of the issues that can arise.
You are encouraged to ask your instructor if you have any questions concerning the academic integrity policy.

Scenario: You forget how to find a regression line in Minitab. You ask a classmate, who reminds you where the regression menu is. You go back to your computer and do the regression.
Analysis: This is acceptable. It is fine to ask for help with Minitab as long as you do the actual calculations yourself.

Scenario: You solve most of the homework problems yourself but get stuck on two of them. You explain your difficulties to your classmate, who points out your mistakes. You go home and write up correct solutions, including a note acknowledging your classmate's help.
Analysis: This is acceptable because you wrote up your solutions independently and made an appropriate acknowledgment.

Scenario: Your classmate forgot to make one of the graphs in Minitab that he needed, so you send him yours by email.
Analysis: This is cheating. You are violating the academic integrity policy by sending your graph to another student. Your classmate is violating the academic integrity policy by using a graph made by someone else.

Scenario: A friend who took Math 11 last year shows you her computer lab solutions to help you with a few questions on which you are stuck.
Analysis: This is cheating. You may never look at anyone else's homework or computer lab solutions, and you may never obtain materials from previous Math 11 students. Note that because the lab assignments change slightly from quarter to quarter, this sort of cheating is likely to be detected by the lab graders.

Scenario: Your classmate has finished her homework and shows you her solutions. You base your solutions on hers, making changes to the wording throughout.
Analysis: This is cheating. Even though you are not using your classmate's exact wording, it is never acceptable to be looking at another student's homework solutions.

Scenario: Three people work on a homework assignment together. They all contribute and acknowledge one another's help. Because they wrote their solutions together at the same time, their solutions are nearly identical.
Analysis: This is cheating. You must write your final solutions independently, in which case two or more people will never have homework or lab solutions that look essentially the same.

Scenario: To help future Math 11 students, you decide to post your lab solutions to a popular website that accepts submissions of course materials.
Analysis: This is a violation of the academic integrity policy. While it is admirable to want to help other students learn, posting course materials online, where other students could find them with a Google search, primarily facilitates cheating rather than learning. It is important for all current and future Math 11 students to have the benefit of working through the homework and lab assignments on their own, without access to others' solutions.